Dependence on independence: Central bank lawyers and the (un)making of the European economy

We analyse the trajectory of independence in formation European Central Bank (ECB), conceptualized as a boundary organization that, by delineating economy, contributes to supranational state effect. Success effort, however, requires ECB constantly assert separate and special status, despite its embeddedness multiple fields. Focusing on Monetary Institute, ECB’s predecessor, we trace how historically obscure bank-based legal experts enabled assertion separateness reworking into newly multivalent category that could be wielded authority struggles with national central banks institutions. The dependence independence, argue, renders it uniquely vulnerable repoliticization banking.